During the past few months, the Lewiston Tribune has published letters promoting the idea that Muslims don’t belong in America.
I have personal experiences with these attitudes. As an American Muslim, I have been bullied in school as a child and now, as an adult, I suffer regular assumptions that Muslim women are uneducated.
I am compelled to write today because the consequences of Islamophobia are even more threatening than a pulled hijab or a rude remark. Islamophobia is fueling violence against my community and threatening me and my family. Publications such as the Lewiston Tribune have a responsibility regarding the representation of all their readers, no matter their religion, race or ethnicity.
Publishing letters with hateful bigotry against Muslims is extremely dangerous. It gives hateful rhetoric a platform. These words are not simply opinions; they are a symptom of Islamophobia, a destructive disease that fuels violence — whether it’s assaults on Muslim women, the creation of Punish a Muslim Day and even mass shootings such as the one we saw in New Zealand last month.
March 15 this year was a Friday, a holy day for Muslims. It’s the day of the week when Muslims all around the world go to the mosque for their afternoon prayer. This one was particularly special for my family. After prayer, our mosque community was going to join us in celebrating my sister’s wedding.
What was supposed to be a happy morning was instead filled with fear — fear that someone would see what happened in New Zealand, would read the horrifying manifesto left by the killer and be inspired to commit an act of violence against us.
After the 2016 presidential election, hate incidents against Muslims began to increase sharply. A recent report from the FBI shows that hate crimes in Washington state increased by 42 percent in 2017. More recently we have seen an unprecedented level of death threats against freshman Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.
The hateful sentiments in the letters published by this paper on Feb. 27 and March 26 are not isolated opinions. The type of hate and fear perpetuated in these is often from people who have never met or interacted with an American Muslim.
The next time you encounter something Islamophobic, I urge you to ask yourself these questions:
Would this be acceptable if I replaced the word “Muslims” with “Jewish” or “African-American”?
Does this perpetuate unfounded stereotypes and encourage us to fear our Muslim neighbors?
Could this stoke violence against Muslims?
Will it make our Muslim neighbors, your Muslim readers and people like me and my family feel more afraid than we already are?
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